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Getting frisky with frosting

Frostitution owner Karen Wielonda puts the finishing touches on one of her homemade creations. (COLIN O'CONNOR / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

By Kim HoneyFood editor

Wed., June 25, 2008

Frosty is a cupcake all right, with her come-hither smile and fishnet stockings.

She's also the mascot for an unconventional business called Frostitution, and the alter ego of Karen Wielonda, a 27-year-old Toronto baker who can make pretty much anything out of cake and buttercream icing.

"I do whatever you want me to do," laughs Wielonda, 27. "Sometimes I feel like a prostitute."

That includes the downright ribald, from three-dimensional reproductions of the most intimate parts of the human anatomy – some giving birth to plastic baby heads – to elaborate wedding cakes.

"I've seen all the boobies and the babies and the vaginas," says Will Munro, co-owner with Lynn McNeil of The Beaver Restaurant on Queen St. W., where Wielonda makes more traditional pastries such a butter tarts, clafouti and cupcakes.

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"They're definitely unique."

One the weekends Wielonda is usually hard at work on another masterpiece, such as a three-dimensional bust of a Frenchman with a pencil thin mustache and blue-and-white striped shirt, or a pink sperm whale.

When people ask her to make something specific, she uses Google image. But she loves it best when a customer leaves it in her hands, though she always asks a lot of questions about the recipient in order to customize the cake.

"It's almost voyeuristic for me in a way," she says. "I always did them for friends so I knew a lot about them."

Wielonda grew up in Kitchener where her German grandmother was always baking treats. There was coffee cake for coffee time, which coincided with the end of the school day, as well as Black Forest cake, torte and strudel.

In Grade 9, her mother bought her a Wilton cake decorating set. "It was something I wanted. I was always making cakes for family for birthdays."

At 19 she moved to Toronto, took a one-year chef's training course at George Brown College, and fell in love with baking.

"Most people I know are cooks or bakers," she says. "It's one or the other. A lot of cooks think baking is more laid back and easy and that may be true,"

A couple of years later, after jobs in various bakeries including a stint at Whole Foods, she began making shaped cakes, first just for friends.

As word got around, she started getting orders and a cottage industry was born.

Cory Silverberg, owner of the sex shop Come As You Are, heard about Karen from a co-worker at SexTV, where he is a consultant. In 2007, when he organized the first Erotic Arts and Crafts festival, Wielonda was on the guest list. And every year when the store has its midnight sale, she does the cupcakes.

"Her cupcakes are homages to part of the female form well suited to being celebrated by cupcakes," he says delicately.

When he was a kid, Silverberg says he and his friends always wanted one baker to make their birthday cakes because he could make anything, like a skateboard.

"Karen's like that, but for adults."

Wielonda keeps it small. She doesn't advertise. But she's dreaming of the day when she can open a storefront operation in her neighbourhood of Parkdale, something she envisions like an art gallery with space to display fake versions of her concoctions so people can see the full range of her genre.

In the meantime, Frosty is busy on her MySpace page, grinning seductively at visitors who are treated to a slideshow accompanied by the sound of The Cramps singing "What's Inside a Girl."

And yes, Wielonda does own the Frosty suit, which is made out of papier mâché. Her live-in girlfriend came up with the concept after she said she wanted something like "Betty Boop meets a cupcake."

"I only wore it a couple of times because I can't see anything," she laughs.

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